Printing systems typically include a print controller and one or more print engines. The print controller directs the overall operation of the printing system including, for example, host interfacing, interpretation or rendering of print data, and lower level process control or interface features of the print engines. The print engines transfer some type of colorant to a printable media, such as paper, under the direction of the print controller. The colorant may include wet inks, toner, waxes, etc. When the colorant is a type of wet ink, such as an aqueous ink, part of the printing process includes drying the wet ink that has been applied to the print media.
Various type of drying mechanisms exist for drying wet colorants, such as wrapping the print media around a heated metal drum, radiating the print media with Infra-Red (IR) lamps, and directing hot air across the print media. However, each of these drying mechanisms has various drawbacks. Drum dryers have relatively poor heat transfer characteristics to paper, because paper is a poor conductor of heat. This limits the speed and the weight of the print media that can be dried utilizing drum dryers. Radiant dryers have an improved heat transfer characteristic over drum dryers, but differential heating of the print media may cause the print media to wrinkle during the drying process. Although directing hot air across the print media results in a convective drying process, a boundary layer at the surface of the media may limit the drying ability without a long drying path.